Jota’a death undoubtedly had a significant impact. He was very well-liked by his teammates. Of course, none of us can say precisely what that impact was and how it impacted each player. But without underestimating that at all, I think the unhappiness goes beyond Diogo’s death. The players are rudderless on the pitch, especially those players who never played with Diogo. There is no joy because there seems to be no direction.
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I don’t think Hughes is doing that. His man delivered a title and what looks to be CL football. That’s fine outcomes even if the way we’ve got there has been rough.
Now he may have the confidence to make that change this summer without it appearing to be owning up to a mistake. And sure, he’ll believe in whoever he brings in. But, if performances don’t improve dramatically there will then be that question of “what if he’d not sacked a manager a year on from winning the league?” And equally the question would then surely come about whether the half a billion quid transfer splurge he oversaw was actually the issue.
Either way unless results pick up next season he’s onto a hiding. In that scenario a new manager perhaps buys him the opportunity to say the new guy needs time. If he’s stuck with Slot we’re not going to sack the DoF whilst being on the hunt for a new manager.
Of course the other option is that there’s truth to the rumours Hughes is off to Saudi anyway. And, the reason the noises around us keeping Slot are so loud is because we don’t want to be hunting for a DoF and a new manager in the same summer. The summer when we’re re also trying to replace our talisman and there’s a world cup on too.
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Nah he’d want Maggie Phlbin as Assistant.
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Totally agree. Results can be affected by tiny margins, slices of luck or the bounce of a ball. A season of consistently poor performances is systemic, even if you do pick up enough points to deliver the minimum objective for the season.
You don’t fix systemic issues with a bit more time and patience. It needs something significant to break the system or culture at the heart of it.
Not that I believe them but the latest rumours I saw is that he hasnt accepted the offer and the Saudi Club are now going to speak to someone else.
I think if he were to accept now it would be even odder now that PIF is beginning to sell out of its clubs there and there is I would expect probably going to be less money to spend on players.
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Hope they don’t let Ali go without an appropriate fat fee. If it’s not forthcoming he can stay as last thing we need this summer is spending some of our budget on another keeper.
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I think the unhappiness is due to how Slot sets up the team, his apparent lack of emotional connection with the players and how Slot trains the team.
Going on multiple midweek breaks while the team’s form is shit is a huge red flag for anyone to see…
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(Goodwin Ike from the Academy in case you are wondering)
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I’d have taken it too of course, but it’s the dynamics of the course we are steering towards right now which is concerning.
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Liverpool’s principal owner has insisted that FSG will not “settle for mediocrity” amid the club’s ongoing difficulties.
does this mean he’s taking Salah’s concerns seriously? Is it a message for Slot?
It’s the hope that kills you.
Now that FSG has backed off from significantly raising some of the ticket price after supporters “concern”, will FSG also get the push back from supporters on supposedly continuous backing of our current head coach too? 
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Probably can’t afford to sack him now 
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Oh crap, probably also means that not only FSG will keep Slot, but also no shiny new players based on my earlier comment on not continuously backing him. Nooooooooooooooooooo!
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Would that include Salah’s performances this season?
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Well, he’s already on his way, but by this logic we’ll be playing with ekitike and szoboszlai only
I was making the point that some people want to side when evidently a lot have been shit.
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I think I’ve just become immune to the Salah criticism by now 
his legacy’s well established regardless.
Anyhow where did FSG say that as that would be the strongest hint yet that they are considering a change
Maybe I’m just focusing on a small part of your previous post that isn’t core to your position, but whether the totality of the last two years has been on par with expectations and whether Slot has succeeded in keeping the ship steady steady in response to the loss of monumental figure are two quite different questions.
If someone was to tell me that after Klopp left we’d secure CL in both of the next two seasons, including one title win I’d have been over the moon. But if you then tell me that at the end of that second season that manager would be out, a year before his contract was ending, it would be clear that there was something I had not been told. If I probed for more info to find out what that was and was told something along the lines of "we’ve gone backwards in the second season at an alarming rate with no indication the manager has any idea of how to stop it, the players look lost and unhappy with several either actively trying to leave or seriously exploring their options and the expectations for the coming season are depressingly low " then that would really recontextualize how successful the 2 year period had been.
As I’ve said before, when it comes to evaluating leadership tenures I lean heavily on the camp ground rule - leave it better than you found it. Klopp handed over something that was hard to improve so maybe the camp ground assessment for the next guy is closer “dont fuck this up,” and that unfortunately appears to be where we are. The next guy has a monumental challenge on his hands to get him back to where we were in August of 24. I agree we don’t know if anyone else would have done better so I think questions about whether it was a mistake to hire him are very difficult, but independent of that you can still ask the question of whether Slot succeeded or failed. I think if a guy is moved on after 2 years with the club in a bit of disarray I think that is very difficult to conclude as anything other than a failure.
I concede though there are lots of different ideas that often get conflated in an ongoing conversation like that so it’s very possible we’re talking about subtly different things Ultimately I think its possible for it to have been the a reasonable enough choice that you cannot ding the decisions makers on picking him even if it ends up as a failure, and even acknowledging how tough a job it is with such high expectations, its difficult to see someone turfed out after 2 years as anything other than not meeting expectations.
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